Rating: ©©©©-1/4 chips (lip-smacking)
Not too very long ago we were fortunate enough to taste Rusty’s Original Island Potato Chips for the very first memorable time. Before we had even finished our first handful of the fantastically fried thick potato slices we new without a doubt that we had just relished IOHP the best potato chips ever! Period!! Game over!!! With that being said, we were both excited, and a little apprehensive to try Rusty’s version of America’s other favorite style of chip – corn tortilla. On the one hand, we had plenty of faith in Rusty’s chip making abilities (for proof of that see our review of his potato chips), but on the other hand, corn tortilla chips are an entirely different beast than potato chips (and by beast, we of course mean starchy vegetable!), and anything is possible in the world of chips!
Once again we would like to begin with Rusty’s chip story:
Once upon a time, 1980, Rusty, while dreaming of far away places, came up with a plan to make Maui Potato Chips on the mainland. Six months later, Rusty was manufacturing Rusty’s Island Chips in his own little kitchen in Costa Mesa, Ca. His Maui recipe chips were selling like hot cakes in every gourmet market in Southern California. By 1990, Rusty’s Chips were in every major market as well. He was shipping chips to the east coast by the truck load and even to Hawaii.
Rusty’s little Maui chip company grew and grew. It got so big so fast that the stress was getting to Rusty, and he wasn’t surfing anymore. He did not have time to be on his sail boat. He wasn’t happy. So he let a big company swallow up his little company. Well the 1990’s came, and a lot of things did not survive the times and one was Rusty’s Maui Chips. The recipe was changed, the little kitchen turned into a factory, and the love for the best chips ever faded away…
Well, Rusty’s Back!! He has his own chip kitchen in Huntington Beach and things could not be better….!!!
What do you do when you are not satisfied with your local tortilla chip selection? Well, in the case of Rusty, you simply use your magic chip creating abilities to come up with something that you do love! Luckily for all of us, these chips just so happen to be something that we (and we’re guessing you) would love too!
Similar to his potato chips, Rusty’s chip strips are thick cut, we’re talking unusually thick cut, with a really hearty crunch. These chips crunch even harder than his potato chips, and that’s saying something. The shape of these chip strips are a bit unique, and it took us a couple of handfuls before we realized what exactly Rusty’s reasoning, or technique, behind this design really was. After we noticed that a couple of the strips were sort of in the shape of a half moon (as opposed to all of the chips being uniform 3 inch by 1 inch strips) that it finally dawned on us that Rusty was simply using round corn tortillas, and cutting them into strips; resulting in some strips that were longer than others, and some strips that had one rounded edge and one straight flat edge! Not that this technique really added very much to the chip eating experience, but we did sort of personally appreciate the chip variation as we worked our way through the bag.
Rusty’s corn masa flavor is pretty darn tasty, with an undeniable underlying level of sweetness. The sweet note adds a layer of depth that really complimented the corn flavor. The chips also had just the right level of salt. All in all, simply very good tasting tortilla chips! Were they as good as Rusty’s Potato Chips? No, but for plain, salted, tortilla chips, they were a lip-smacking addition to the genre that we would be more than happy to crunch again!
Rusty’s Island Chips provided to Chip Review for review
Chip Ratings Scale:
(1/4 increments)
© – return to sender
©© – tolerable
©©© – notable
©©©© – lip-smacking
©©©©© – “A” list
Chip Review 